Road to First NCAA Tournament Berth Gets Tougher for Northwestern

Northwestern entered the 2011-2012 season with high hopes of earning its first ever trip to the NCAA Tournament. After tonight's nerve-wracking 75-73 loss to No. 10 Ohio State, Northwestern will likely once again find itself on the outside (of the Tournament field) looking in.

If ever there was such thing as a "must win" game, tonight's contest with Ohio State represented that for Northwestern. The Wildcats came into the game clinging precariously to the NCAA Tournament "bubble." When the game tipped off, they had a 17-11 overall record, with a 7-11 record in the rugged Big Ten. The main credential on Northwestern's NCAA Tournament resume was an impressive mid January win over then-No. 6 ranked Michigan State. But after that, the Northwestern resume was a bit thin: their only other "big" win was an early February win at Illinois.

That's why tonight's home finale against Ohio State was so big. With an upset over the No. 10 Buckeyes, Northwestern would have had two signature wins over opponents ranked in the top ten of the AP Top 25. Even with a win, Northwestern still probably would have needed to beat Iowa this weekend and win a game in the Big Ten Tournament to get into the NCAA Tournament. But a late-season upset win over Ohio State would have made Northwestern's case for receiving a bid to the NCAA Tournament considerably more credible.

That's also why Jared Sullinger's tie-breaking and game-winning turnaround bank shot with 3.1 seconds was so crushing. The Wildcats overcame a 13 point defecit late in the second half to tie the Buckeyes in the game's final seconds. Momentum was on the 'Cats' side and they were that close to taking the game into overtime (at home, no less -- overtime is usually kind to the home team); Sullinger's game-winner was dagger that probably ended whatever chance Northwestern had of making its first appearance at the "Big Dance."

However dispiriting tonight's loss may be for the Northwestern basketball program and its fans, a brief look back at the road that led Northwestern to the NCAA Tournament "bubble" provides some needed perspective. Overall, Northwestern basketball is a success story. The once-perpetually moribund Wildcat basketball program has slowly and quietly become a legitimate second-tier competitor in the Big Ten conference. Head coach Bill Carmody was originally hired away from Princeton in 2000 to install the famed "Princeton offense" at Northwestern, and thus, give the ever-undermanned Wildcats at least a fighting chance to a "hang" with their athletically superior Big Ten rivals. In recent years, however, Carmody has been able to attract significantly better players to the highly-selective Evanston, Ill., school. As a result, the Wildcats have gotten a lot better: they've made three straight N.I.T. appearances, and they put together back-to-back 20 win seasons in 2010 and 2011.

The one big thing they haven't done yet, though, is make it to the NCAA Tournament.

All the gradual improvement of the Carmody era has been great (however deliberate and plodding the Wildcats' style of basketball may be), but Northwestern basketball won't have officially turned the corner and won't officially be on the college basketball "map" until the Wildcats take the floor in the NCAA Tournament. Things, however, looked quite promising prior to the start of the 2011-2012 season: with what the "experts" expected to be a "weak" Big Ten (how wrong they were!); with the attendant expected "wide open" open Big Ten race; and with four returning starters coming into 2012 -- including leading scorer John Shurna -- 2012 was supposed to be the year.

Obviously, things didn't exactly work out as expected. The Big Ten turned out to be the strongest conference in Division I college basketball. Outside of Penn State and Nebraska, every Big Ten team has, at various points in the season, looked like a potential NCAA Tournament invitee. Northwestern had an easy non-conference schedule and subsequently raced out to a 10-2 non-conference record (which included wins against LSU, Seton Hall and Georgia Tech). But the rough-and-tumble Big Ten brought the Wildcats back to Earth a bit, and despite the aforementioned impressive wins over then-No. 6 ranked Michigan State and at Illinois, Northwestern limped into tonight's home finale against Ohio State with a 7-9 conference record and in desperate need of a win to keep their NCAA Tournament hopes alive.

They're now 17-12 overall, 7-10 in the Big Ten. And barring some "bat out of Hell" run in the upcoming Big Ten Tournament, Jared Sullinger's game winning shot likely relegated them to their fourth consecutive N.I.T.

(Photo: Jared Sullinger game-winning shot, courtesy of Lake the Posts).

Last Remaining Undefeated Team Falls: Wisconsin Upends Ohio State's Hopes For Perfect Season

(Reuters photo: Wisconsin's Jordan Taylor [Left] and Jon Leuer [Right] celebrate their win over No. 1 Ohio State).



No. 1 ranked Ohio State was undefeated when they entered the Kohl Center in Madison, WI, for their Saturday afternoon game against No. 13 Wisconsin. But the Buckeyes exited the Kohl Center with their hopes of an undefeated season dashed after they were upset by Wisconsin 71-67. Wisconsin junior point guard Jordan Taylor scored 21 of his 27 points and dished out 4 assists in the final 13 minutes of the game, as he and the Badgers overcome a 15 point Ohio State lead en route to victory.

Ohio State will drop from No. 1 when the new AP Top 25 is released on Monday. Current No. 2 Kansas will, undoubtedly, overtake the No. 1 position. But Ohio State will be just fine. No one really expected them to finish the season with an undefeated record. As Drive and Dish opined when the previously undefeated and No. 1 ranked Duke Blue Devils lost their first game of the season in January, nobody goes undefeated in college basketball today. Bob Knight's 1976 Indiana Hoosiers delivered the last undefeated season in men's college basketball. In the ensuing 35 years, nobody else has finished the season with an unblemished record. And it's extremely unlikely that anybody will do so anytime soon, if ever.

The loss will have no bearing on Ohio State's prospects for earning a trip to the 2011 Final Four and a shot at the 2011 National Championship. They still must be considered legitimate contenders for both honors. However, it bears mention that teams which rely heavily on freshmen rarely win Championships--especially teams that start a freshman at point guard. And despite the leadership of talented upperclassmen David Lighty, William Buford and Jon Diebler, coach Thad Matta's Buckeyes are led freshman superstar center Jared Sullinger and start freshman Aaron Craft at point guard.

Drive and Dish considers the 2011 Ohio State Buckeyes to be the most talented, best balanced team in college basketball. But they face an uphill battle in their quest to reach the Final Four, if for no other reason than their heavy reliance on freshmen at the key positions of center and point guard. Jared Sullinger might be the best player in the college game, but he's still a freshman (despite the fact that he doesn't play like one). At some point in the NCAA Tournament, his inexperience--as well as the inexperience of freshman point guard Craft--is likely to catch up with the Buckeyes.

So who do we expect to win the 2011 National Championship? It's still too early to answer that question, or to even identify a short-list of likely teams. It's been one of those rare seasons in college basketball in which no team has distinguished itself as a favorite. Defending National Champion Duke still probably has to be considered the team to beat, despite the fact that the Blue Devils have lost several key players from their 2010 Championship team. But there's lots of room for an upstart to take the college basketball world by storm. Can Ohio State be that team? Possibly, but Buckeye fans shouldn't hold their collective breath waiting for that to happen. No freshman has taken his team to an NCAA men's basketball title since Carmello Anthony directed Syracuse to the 2003 Championship. And Anthony was a noteworthy exception to an otherwise near-ironclad rule: prior to 2003, Louisville's Purvis Ellison had been the last freshman to lead his team to a National Championship (1986). Michael Jordan famously hit the game-winning shot as a freshman for North Carolina in the 1982 National Championship game, but the young Jordan was far from the leader of his team--upperclassmen James Worthy, Sam Perkins and Matt Daugherty led the '82 Tar Heels.

Ohio State is very talented and should be considered extremely dangerous with regard to their potential for making a run deep into the NCAA Tournament. But the odds are still against them cutting down the nets in April.

Illinois: On the Bubble Again

(Photo: Indiana players celebrate Thursday's upset win over No. 20 Illinois: Darron Cummings, Champaign [IL] News-Gazette)


It's become a familiar refrain here at Drive and Dish, but we gave serious consideration to using this blog to predict an Indiana upset over No. 20 Illinois yesterday. Unfortunately, yesterday's beginning-to-end, tightly-packed schedule didn't permit us the time required to write a coherent, quality blog post. But we thought that last night's game looked to be an obvious "trap game" for the always mercurial Fighting Illini: Illinois was coming off a hard-fought, nail-biting, nationally-televised home loss to to No. 1 Ohio State and was expected to make amends by rolling over an injury-riddled, last-place opponent on the road.

As long as the sun comes up in the east, Bruce Weber's Illini can be expected to follow up a heart-breaking loss in which they "choke" at the end of a nationally-televised "big game" against a highly ranked opponent (Illinois' usual "big game" result), with an unforeseen, almost laughable, quickie loss to a lower-regarded opponent. Such "let down" losses are usually the result of Illinois' players overlooking their supposedly "inferior" opponents, and accordingly, forgetting to "show up."

If you're a smart gambler, you always bet against Illinois.

And once again, it's too bad we didn't get the chance to make our prediction, because, true to form, No. 20 Illinois suffered a humiliating 52-49 road loss to struggling Indiana Thursday night in Bloomington, IN.

With the upset win, the Hoosiers notched their mere seventh Big Ten conference win -- and their first win over an opponent ranked in the AP Top 25 -- since Tom Crean became head coach of the once-great, but recently-moribund program three years ago. Making matters worse for Illinois was the fact that the depleted Hoosiers were without both of their starting guards, Verdell Jones and Maurice Creek.

Illinois' record now drops to 14-7 overall, and to an eye-opening 4-4 in Big Ten play. Indiana improved to a meager 11-10 overall, and 2-6 in the Big Ten. What makes Illinois' most recent letdown loss all the more galling for Illini fans is the fact that, once again, Illinois has failed to live up to lofty preseason expectations. Most analysts had expected the upperclassmen-laden Illini to compete for the 2011 Big Ten conference title and to be a major player in the NCAA Tournament in March. But now with the Big Ten title out of reach, Illinois finds itself in an all-too-familiar place -- sitting directly atop the NCAA Tournament bubble.

College basketball fans may remember that Illinois was widely expected to do big things last year. However, the 2009-2010 team spent the season with a figurative ball and chain affixed to an ankle after it sauntered its way into back-to-back embarrassing upset losses at the hands of Utah and Bradley in the 2009 Las Vegas Invitational Thanksgiving Tournament. Despite high preseason expectations, the 2010 Illini muddled their way through what turned out to be a challenging schedule, and limped into the final week of the season as one of the most high profile teams on the proverbial NCAA Tournament "bubble." Ultimately, the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee left Illinois out of the Tournament field, and the Illini ended their disappointing 2010 season with an ugly home loss to Dayton in the N.I.T.

This season was supposed to be different. Heading into the inaugural 2010-2011 tip-off, Illinois looked good on paper. First, they had the distinction of being the tallest team in college basketball. Their roster had two players who stood at least seven feet tall, and they had a returning starting front line that went 7'1", 6'9" and 6'9," respectively. Second, Illinois featured a promising coterie of experienced upperclassman, talented sophomores and highly-touted freshmen from the much-hyped 2010 Illini recruiting class. But perhaps most importantly, Illinois entered the season with the ace-in the-hole of being led by a standout senior point guard, Demetri McCamey. And that seemed to bode extremely well for the Illini, since point guards are the lifeblood of college basketball. Want to look like a genius when filling out your NCAA Tournament bracket? Pick teams that are led by tough, experienced, standout point guards. Your brackets will thank you.

Unfortunately for Illinois, all their size, talent (or purported talent) and experience hasn't been enough to turn their fortunes around from last year. First team All Big Ten senior point guard Demetri McCamey, senior power forward Mike Davis, senior center Mike Tisdale and senior forward Bill Cole have loads of experience, but they have yet to exhibit consistent toughness, intensity, competitiveness and determination to win. That amounts to a lack of leadership. And it shows in the results, as the Illini are quickly spiraling their way out of being in legitimate NCAA Tournament contention.

This past Saturday, llinois gave undefeated, No. 1 Ohio State all it could handle in the friendly confines (for the Illini--not so friendly for visiting teams) of Assembly Hall in Champaign, IL. But predictably, Ohio State's much-vaunted inside game, led by super freshman Jared Sullinger, wore the Illini down late in the game. And ultimately, the Illini came up short of pulling off an upset win over the No. 1 team in college basketball. That wouldn't have been a problem for Illinois if the Illini had come out of Bloomington, IN, with a "W" last night (as they were supposed to do). Close losses to good teams don't hurt you in the eyes of the Tournament Selection Committee when you've got a good record, you have plenty of impressive wins over good teams, you have a string of road wins, and you win the games that you're supposed to win. But close losses to good teams won't help you get you into the NCAA Tournament when you're bogged down with multiple embarrassing losses to bad teams, when you don't win games on the road (Illinois is currently 1-3 on the road), and when you fall to teams that you're supposed to beat.

Illinois was supposed to be good this year. But once again, they've failed to live up to expectations. And once again, they're in big trouble with regard to their prospects for making it in to the NCAA Tournament.